“Our strategy is about being successful in our sport — rugby,” he said. “We don’t measure our broadcast figures against the other codes as we are an international sport and have very different broadcast and schedule circumstances, with 50 per cent of our away games played offshore and in differing time zones.

“In Australia, we were ranked second only behind semi-finalists the Waratahs in Super Rugby average live viewership during the regular season in 2015.

“We also had the largest regular-season average attendances of all the Australian Super Rugby teams and the third highest average attendance across all three Super Rugby countries.

“Remember too, that our first home game was played during a cyclone in Brisbane and was nearly cancelled an hour before kick-off.”

Broncos coach Wayne Bennett vowed to uphold the vision of the club’s founders — to be the Queensland people’s team.

“The power of the Broncos brand is quite exceptional,” Bennett said.

“I am rapt with those figures.

“The players to their credit recognise the huge responsibility they have being part of the Broncos.

“The Broncos have always been part of the Queensland psyche. I really understand that and it was the ambition of the directors when they set the club up and they gave me the permission to drive it all those years ago.

“We’ve had wonderful teams and wonderful players who epitomise what Queensland is about. The challenge is to keep driving that because there are other sports and other teams out there entertaining as well.”

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